


Resting In The Bow of Your Lips (Darling Kiss Me)

by Emma_Please



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: 1920s, Also there's not enough joe/will in this fandom, Fluffy, Hurt/Comfort, I left this movie feeling gutted and then proceeded to post this months after seeing it, M/M, Mentions of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23115568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Please/pseuds/Emma_Please
Summary: When the war finally came to an end, Joseph breathed a sigh of relief and wondered, briefly, if the young man with those unnaturally blue eyes had made it out in one piece.
Relationships: Joseph Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 7
Kudos: 87





	Resting In The Bow of Your Lips (Darling Kiss Me)

Perhaps, in some ways, Joseph Blake should feel furious. Perhaps, in another world, he does feel furious- but that world is not this world and all Joseph can feel is empty. Hollowed out and scrapped raw in a way that leaves him wanting to heave. Yet still, still he does not feel half as bereft as Lance Corporal William Schofield looks, resting against the lone tree whose existence remains a miracle. Joseph watches him, takes note of his injuries and the way he’s slumped as if all the strings holding him up have been viciously cut. The sun is lower in the sky now, and the sounds of battle have faded, infrequent, some unspoken knowledge between them that speaks of the sacredness of oncoming night.

No one has dared to move Schofield from where he remains asleep. The word has spread, though, of the man with wild eyes who ran headfirst into danger to honor the wish of a dying man- _Joseph’s dying brother who was just a boy _-__ the man who looks as though he’s been through a deeper, harsher kind of hell. For those reasons, they leave him where he is, although that does not prevent them from gathering around him, intrigued. Even with the eyes of curious men on him, Schofield has shown no signs of waking up. Joseph muscles his way through the crowd, rations in hand because Schofield has the pale pallor of a man who hasn’t tasted food in days, and sets to waking the young man up.

From up close it’s easier to trace his eyes over the lines of Schofield’s face, his bow lips and the soft slant of his closed eyes who carry deep purple bruises with them. Joseph lifts a hand, intends to set it upon his shoulder, and then thinks better of it because he knows what haunts men in their silent dreams. Instead, he says his name, soft, “Schofield,” and watches as long lashes struggle to flit up and unveil light electric eyes that are a blue unheard of. That was perhaps the first thing that stuck out to Joseph, back when Schofield had upended his world, how the man’s eyes had been so blue in the light of the morning- blue enough for men and women to drown in.

Joseph valiantly tells himself that he should not focus so intensely on this man or he might lose whatever composure he has left and break down into tears.

In the span of a few short seconds Schofield settles his eyes on Joseph and lets them rest there for a few minutes, and Joseph knows that somewhere deep in his brain the young soldier is struggling not to see Tom in the shadows of Joseph’s face. In times like these Joseph is grateful that he and Tom are-were not too similar looking, aside from sharing their mother’s eyes. It makes things easier for both him and Schofield. While waiting for him to recover all his senses, Joseph reaches out and takes Schofield’s shaking hands, curving them around the rations and shooing off some of the men who linger too close.

They’ll get bored, soon enough, and wander off to barter coffin-nails with some of the men who don’t much like having smoke in their lungs (because it reminds them too much of artillery fire and the burning of villages). It’s the life of a soldier: a mix of waiting and taking orders and trying not to get killed. They have downtime and he knows most men like to rest, curl their spines and press their backs to sandbags for stability and safety and a sense of protection that is welcomed in this land of cold dreaded mud. Others get restless, fidget and scrape their fingers through the soft ground to watch shapes take form; others write letters, and whether they ever send out those letters is all speculation.

Joseph will have to write his mother soon, to tell her about Tom, to break her heart all over again, for the third time. The first had been when his father had been drafted, and then in quick succession both her sons. Their father is home now, a blighty one to his hip that meant he would always walk with a slight limp. Better a limp, Joseph thinks, then his entire leg. That return has soothed some of their mother’s aches and now Joseph will tear away at all those foundations with just a few, shaky words: _Tom is dead_.

Even as he thinks it, his throat closes up, unforgiving, and Joseph presses his knuckles quickly to his eyelids to remind himself of where he is. Perhaps he is pressing too harshly, for a calloused hand, with fingers longer than his own, pulls them away from his face. When he follows those fingers up, back to Willam Schofield and his blue eyes, there is nothing but compassion and empathy waiting for him.

 _I know,_ they say. And Joseph thinks back, _thank you for staying with him_ , and watches as Schofield swallows visibly and looks away, down at the ground, as if he thinks he’s failed. The words: _I was with him when he died_ , echo in the air. Part of Joseph hates himself for not being there, but the other part weeps in gratitude that Tom died in the arms of a man who went through everything so that his companion’s brother and all these men could live. With a soft exhale, Joseph cradles his hand around the delicate line of Schofield’s neck and urges him forward so that their foreheads meet, intimate in the dim light of the evening.

The men, most of whom had wandered off in search of other means of entertainment, politely looked away, understanding intrinsically that sometimes war wrought out all the love you had and that you needed to replenish it wherever you could. Schofield, for his part, merely exhaled and fell further forward, until his forehead made contact with Joseph’s shoulder. Then he rested there, the ration can still held loosely in his hands. Joseph thought to take it away from him but the thought of taking anything away from this man made his chest feel tight and his eyes sting.

“You have to eat,” said Joseph at last. His voice was low, only for Schofield’s ears.

“I’m not hungry,” But even as he said so Schofield lifted himself up and Joseph shoved down a pang of disappointment to watch as the young soldier held the can to his lips. It seemed that whatever appetite he had lost was slowly coming back to him and just after a few short minutes he was placing the can down by his side, empty.

“Not hungry, he says, and then gulps it all down and leaves nothing for old Joe,” The smile on Joseph’s face belied his teasing and for the first time a flash of something similar to a smile curved Schofield’s pink lips. It was gone all too soon and Joseph wondered if Tom had ever been able to make this enigmatic man smile; he probably had, knowing Tom’s good-natured humor and stubbornness. _If only you were here_ , Joseph thought, _I’m sure you would have made him smile in a heartbeat- perhaps even laugh._

Still, there was nothing to be gained from such melancholy thoughts, and the awareness in Schofield’s face was beginning to slowly dim, as if time and exhaustion had just caught up to the young soldier, inviting themselves into the sky of his eyes without permission. Joseph was unsure now because God knew how Schofield would sleep in the midst of the other men after this whole wretched ordeal, so Joseph tugged him to his feet and let the man lean on him as he led the way to his little dugout space. On their path there the man around him reached up, clapping their hands against either his or Schofield’s legs, arms, hands- whatever they could reach. It was reassurance, a simple human need that they could not deny indulging in even this cold hell.

In his grip, Schofield has begun to shiver relentlessly and his uniform, from where Joseph had an arm coiled around his waist, felt faintly damp. For the umpteenth time that day, Joseph wondered what the poor bastard had been through.

Later, when Schofield had changed and Joseph had curled close against his back, the shivers that had seemed so eager to stay finally melted away. Joseph liked to believe that it was his warm breath against the nape of that slender neck that drove them off.

* * *

When the war finally came to an end, Joseph breathed a sigh of relief and wondered, briefly, if the young man with those unnaturally blue eyes had made it out in one piece. He knew Schofield had written to his mother- he himself had never read the letter but his poor mother, in times of grief, often held the old parchment in her hands and breathed through the pain of losing Tom. The acute anguish of his death would never fade, and his father had made it a point to leave Tom’s room’s door and windows open because neither should they forget him in his brightest moments.

Still, he wondered and never ceased to wonder if Schofield was out there somewhere, in the city far from Joseph’s countryside home. If he was happy and whole and healthy; if his eyes were just as bright and if his lips were just as cold as they’d been on that final day before he’d left when Joseph had backed him up against the lone tree and kissed him slow and sweet, hidden in the shade of the early morning. Joseph wondered and then, one day, no longer had to wonder for a letter arrived on their doorstep addressed to his mother. She’d taken a single look at the careful handwriting and knew immediately who had sent it, familiar as she was to staring at those curved and looped words.

Schofield had written, asking after their orchard-Tom mentioned your cherry orchard to me once, said he was fond of it and I remembered it was around this time of the year that they bore fruit. I wanted to ask how they are doing. Joseph’s mother had written back- would you like to come and see them? In his reply Schofield had evaded answering, the deep saturation of the ink betraying his hesitancy. Joseph’s mother had insisted and instead of asking in her next letter had simply written that Joseph would pick him at the train station come next Monday. Schofield had smartly acquiesced.

Joseph, a witness to the entire ordeal, had held his breath and carefully ignored the knowing look in his parents’ eyes. For the days leading up to Monday Joseph had dreamed of that day, 600 men charging forward- remembered how the breath had been punched out of him at the knowledge of Tom’s death and then the odd kinship with Schofield, whose grief and empathy had left him feeling a little less alone.

Now here he was, waiting at the station, watching as a small group of people stepped off the train and onto the platform. It was easy enough to spot Schofield and even though he hadn’t changed much the sight of him left Joseph breathless. Those eyes reminded Joseph so strongly of the hyacinths his grandfather used to grow, a blue so vibrant they kept the attention drawn to them. The last time he’d seen Schofield he had been pale, purple bruises and cuts slicing across the weakened land of his body, leaving him a fragment of a man.

Now, he was more- his hair was fluffed up by the wind and it seemed as if time away from the horrors of war had done him good. There was a black coat wrapped around his shoulders and while he was no more muscular than he had been, Schofield looked far healthier. He was also, Joseph thought as he wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, achingly alive. The worries Joseph had been carrying since the last letter fled away, properly chastised in the face of Schofield burying into his shoulder.

“Hello again, Will,” Joseph whispered, feeling more than seeing the deep breath Schofield exhaled. “Can I call you Will?”

Schofield laughed, a bright sound that had Joseph tightening his grip in shock. “Yes, yes, you can call me Will, Joseph.” There was something of a waver in his voice, as if he too had spent all this time wondering about Joseph and all in the ways in which this meeting could have been strange.

Back at his home, his mother greeted Will with great fervor, folding him into a hug and urging him down onto the chaise next to the window that Joseph himself loved to sit in. “You’re far too skinny for my liking, dear.”

His father, a genial man even when battling great grief, struck up a conversation with Will about London and the advancements of technology. There was no mention of war or politics, something Joseph knew Will was grateful for. Even now it was unbelievable to think Will was here, and as Joseph nursed his cup of tea he marveled at the beautiful unfamiliarity of it all- of having this man by his side and the only thing that could make this better was if Tom were still alive.

He wasn’t though, and no measure of praying or hoping would bring him back. Still, Joseph thought Tom would have quite enjoyed this scene, of their mother hovering over Will and their father hiding a smile behind his hand.

Later, they’d set Will up in the guest bedroom, although from the look in his parents’ eyes they knew all too well he wouldn’t be sleeping alone by the end of the night. And it was true, for as soon as they parted to their own room, he slipped into Will’s bed and pressed himself against his back, the same way he’d done all those years ago. Will for his part simply settled himself further against Joseph’s chest, humming a low tune beneath his breath as they lay together.

“I’ve missed you terribly.”

“I know. I’ve missed you too.”

“Stay?”

“Forever?”

“For however long you’d like.”

“Then I think I’d like to stay for as long as you’ll have me.”

“Forever, then.”


End file.
